New Delhi, Jun 13 (PTI) Assets worth more than Rs 47 crore of various persons, including Congress leader and former Rajasthan minister Mahesh Joshi, have been attached in the money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the Jal Jeevan Mission in Rajasthan, the ED said on Friday.

A provisional order was issued on Wednesday (June 11) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to attach the properties belonging to Padamchand Jain, Mahesh Mittal, Sanjay Badaya, Mahesh Joshi, Vishal Saxena and their family members/associate firms, the probe agency said in a statement.

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The agency did not specify the value of attachment for these persons separately. It said that the attached assets include agricultural lands, residential flats and houses.

Joshi, 70, was arrested by the federal probe agency in this case in April.

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Sanjay Badaya, an alleged middleman, Mahesh Mittal, proprietor of Shree Ganpati Tubewell Company and Padamchand Jain, proprietor of Shree Shyam Tubewell Company, were arrested earlier in this case, along with one person named Piyush Jain.

The money laundering case stems from an FIR of the state anti-corruption bureau (ACB) wherein it was alleged that Jain, Mittal and others were allegedly involved in giving "bribes" to public servants to obtain illegal protection, get tenders and bills sanctioned and for covering up irregularities in respect of work executed by them in various tenders received by them from the PHE department.

Joshi was a minister of the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) in the previous Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government. The JJM scheme was being implemented in the state by this department.

The agency had claimed that the accused in the case were also involved in the use of "fake" and "fabricated" work experience certificates purportedly issued by Indian Railway Construction International Limited to get PHE contracts.

"Mahesh Joshi, in collusion with his close aide Sanjay Badaya, received undue benefits from contractors like Padamchand Jain and Mahesh Mittal as a quid pro quo for granting tenders pertaining to JJM works and to cover up various irregularities.

"He was charging 2-3 per cent of the tender amount from these contractors as bribe money in order to facilitate favourable treatment and cover-up of various irregularities," the ED earlier claimed.

Gehlot had called Joshi's arrest in April a "political vendetta" and said that the ED has become the "extortion department" of the BJP.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)